This Week in Reception and Year 1

We've had a wonderfully full and exciting week of learning across both Reception and Year 1, with lots of enthusiasm and brilliant effort from all the children.

In History, Year 1 have been delving into the story of the Gunpowder Plot. We spent time discussing what went wrong for Guy Fawkes and his fellow plotters, and the children really enjoyed exploring the events through both primary and secondary sources. They are beginning to understand how we know about things that happened long ago, and why different types of sources can give us different information.

In Maths, Year 1 successfully completed their unit on place value to 100. We revisited counting forwards and backwards, comparing numbers, and partitioning tens and ones. The children showed great progress and confidence. Next week, we will be moving on to an exciting new unit all about shape, where the children will explore 2D and 3D shapes, talk about their properties, and begin to sort and classify them.

Year 1 have also been working incredibly hard on their assessments this week. We are very proud of the effort, resilience, and concentration they have shown. They should all feel very proud of themselves.

In Science, the focus has been on the life cycle of a butterfly. The children learned about the four stages-egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly-and were fascinated to discover how dramatically a butterfly changes as it grows. We looked at pictures, discussed each stage, and had some lovely conversations about other animals that also change as they grow.

In English, both the children and teachers had a real treat as we began exploring performance poetry. The class watched Michael Rosen's famous poem Chocolate Cake, and they were completely mesmerised by his expression, gestures, and humour. This led to lots of laughter and brilliant discussions about how poets use their voices and actions to bring their words to life. We will continue exploring performance poetry next week as the children start to have a go at performing lines themselves.

Meanwhile, both Reception and Year 1 have been deeply involved in their nativity practice. Songs are being sung with growing confidence, lines are being learned, and the children are really starting to bring the story to life. Their hard work and enthusiasm are shining through, and it is already looking absolutely fantastic. We can't wait to share it with you!

We finished the week off dressed as elves, what a week!!

Its has been an exciting week of rehearsals, dress ups and trips!

Despite our topsy-turvy time tables, we have managed to get oodles of learning into our days this week. In Literacy, we have started a new unit of work - we are learning how to write instructions. We had a go at writing our own instructions for our learning partners and then looked at how we could have made them better. Then we looked at some different instructions and compared them to find out what we could include in our own. In Maths, we continued our inquiry into shapes by looking at the vertical line of symmetry. We have even had a go at completing different 2D shapes by using our knowledge of the vertical line of symmetry. Who knew using a ruler was this tricky!

We have also been working super hard at learning our cues and timings for our Nativity next week. Thank you Class 2 families for helping your children learn all their lines and for making time to get their costumes ready. We can't wait to see you all next week for our 3 super-duper performances. If you haven't got them yet, please make sure you contact the office for your tickets before its too late. However, the best part of the week was our class trip to the Sterts Theater for a fabulous puppet show. It was so awesome to see all the children so engaged and its was joy to watch their tiny eyes light up with wonder!

Finally, a very well done to:
> Sofia for getting the Ready Award for her diligence and hard work, especially during Literacy lessons.
> Ivy for getting the Respectful Award for always being polite and kind.
> Jimmy for getting the Safe Award for listening to and following instructions, and keeping safe during our trip.

Friday 5th December

Some of this week's wonderful exploration has included:

On Monday we were shocked to discover the Christmas Elves had indeed visited us and they had decorated our whole room beautifully. They had left us a lovely note and a book advent calendar (and maybe a chocolate one too!) They have been leaving lots of mess for Mrs Phillips to clean up this week. They have eaten our fruit, had a snowball fight with the adult's cotton balls and then splash disappeared last night and we found her in Mrs Waring's pocket in assembly!!!

In English this week the children explored the Christmas Story. They then sequenced the story into their books using some amazing oracy skills! The children's vocabulary is really progressing well.

In maths we have been learning how to represent numbers to five in different ways, for instance 3+1= 4 but 2+ 2 = 4 too!

This week the children have also made Nativity scenes, designed and decorated their own Christmas tree and Christmas jumper, made a manager and stable from building blocks and Lego and so much more!

It was Christmas Crafternoon on Tuesday, and the children loved completing Christmas craft with you all.

The Christmas magic has definitely arrived in class and we are using lots of Christmas activities to progress our learning, knowledge and skills!

Have a lovely weekend

The Foundation Team 

The festive season is in full swing, and our team has been busy bringing the magic of Christmas to life! This year's play takes us on a nostalgic trip back to 1963-a time of classic charm, timeless traditions, and unforgettable music.  Alongside the creative buzz, we've also been diving into the world of circuits. Our experiments have focused on how changing variables-like resistance, voltage, and current-affects overall performance. It's been fascinating to see how small adjustments can lead to big differences in functionality. We've also been sharpening our troubleshooting skills, identifying potential issues.  Here we set the challenge to draw a "broken circuit" and then our partner had to "fix" it.  You have to look closely for the broken wire and the double wire in the pictures. 

Tregantle Class Blog - What an Exciting Week!

This week has been full of festive fun and magical moments for Tregantle Class!

On Tuesday, we went on our class trip to Plymouth Theatre Royal to watch the 'Father Christmas' show. We travelled by train from Saltash to Plymouth, which was an adventure in itself! The children had a wonderful time-enjoying the journey, the enchanting performance, and even a special picnic inside the theatre.

On Thursday, we visited St Nicholas and Faith Church to explore the Christmas Tree Festival. The children loved taking part in a treasure hunt around the church and were thrilled to spot our very own Brunel Christmas tree on display!

To add to the excitement, we also had our first school disco this week. There was plenty of dancing, popcorn, and Christmas cheer to go around.

We've also been busy practicing our singing for our upcoming performance of 'Fleece Force,' which will take place next week. The children are working hard and sounding fantastic!

What a wonderful and exciting week it has been for Tregantle Class!